Woman's Work in the Civil War: A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience

by L. P. Brockett; Mary C. Vaughan

Most careful, tender, and kindly were the ministrations of Mrs. Tyler and her associates—a noble band of women—to these wretched men. Filth, disease, and starvation had done their work upon them. Emaciated, till only the parchment-like skin covered the protruding bones, many of them too feeble for the least exertion, and their minds scarcely stronger than their bodies, they were indeed a spectacle to inspire, as they did, the keenest sympathy, and to call for every effort of kindness.

Mrs. Tyler procured a number of photographs of these wretched men, representing them in all their squalor and emaciation. These were the first which were taken, though the Government afterwards caused some to be made which were widely distributed. With these Mrs. Tyler did much good. She had a large number of copies printed in Boston, after her return there, and both in this country and in Europe, which she afterwards visited, often had occasion to bring them forward as unimpeachable witnesses of the truth of her own statements. Sun pictures cannot lie, and the sun's testimony in these brought many a heart shudderingly to a belief which it had before scouted. In Europe, particularly, both in England and upon the Continent, these pictures compelled credence of those tales of the horrors and atrocities of rebel prison pens, which it had long been the fashion to hold as mere sensation stories, and libels upon the chivalrous South.

Whenever referring to her work at Annapolis for the returned prisoners, Mrs. Tyler takes great pleasure in expressing her appreciation of the valuable and indefatigable services of the late Dr. Vanderkieft, Surgeon in charge of the Naval School Hospital. In his efforts to resuscitate the poor victims of starvation and cruelty, he was indefatigable, never sparing himself, but bestowing upon them his unwearied personal attention and sympathy. In this he was aided by his wife, herself a true Sister of Charity.

Mrs. Tyler also gives the highest testimony to the services and personal worth of her co-workers, Miss Titcomb, Miss Hall, and others, who gave themselves with earnest zeal to the cause, and feels how inadequate would have been her utmost efforts amid the multitude of demands, but for their aid. It is to them chiefly due that so many healthy recreations, seasons of amusement and religious instruction were given to the men.

During and subsequent to the superintendency of Mrs. Tyler at Annapolis a little paper was published weekly at the hospital, under the title of "The Crutch." This was well supplied with articles, many of them of real merit, both by officials and patients. Whenever an important movement took place, or a battle, it was the custom to issue a small extra giving the telegraphic account; when, if it were a victory, the feeble sufferers who had sacrificed so much for their country, would spend the last remnants of their strength, and make the very welkin ring, with their shouts of gladness.

Exhausted by her labors, and the various calls upon her efforts, Mrs. Tyler, in the spring of 1864, was at length obliged to send in her resignation. Her health seemed utterly broken down, and her physicians and friends saw in an entire change of air and scene the best hope of her recovery. She had for some time been often indisposed, and her illness at last terminated in fever and chills. Though well accustomed during her long residence to the climate of Maryland, she no longer possessed her youthful powers of restoration and reinvigoration. Her physicians advised a sea voyage as essential to her recovery, and a tour to Europe was therefore determined upon.

She left the Naval School Hospital on the 27th of May, 1864, and set sail from New York on the 15th of June.

The disease did not succumb at once, as was hoped. She endured extreme illness and lassitude during her voyage, and was completely prostrated on her arrival in Paris where she lay three weeks ill, before being able to proceed by railroad to Lucerne, Switzerland, and rejoin her sister who had been some months in Europe, and who, with her family, were to be the traveling companions of Mrs. Tyler. Arrived at Lucerne, she was again prostrated by chills and fever, and only recovered after removal to the dryer climate of Berlin. The next year she was again ill with the same disease after a sojourn among the dykes and canals of Holland.

Mrs. Tyler spent about eighteen months in Europe, traveling over various parts of the Continent, and England, where she remained four or five months, returning to her native land in November, 1865, to find the desolating war which had raged here at the time of her departure at an end. Her health had been by this time entirely re-established, and she is happy in the belief that long years of usefulness yet remain to her.

Ardent and fearless in her loyalty to her Government, Mrs. Tyler had ample opportunities, never neglected, to impress the truth in regard to our country and its great struggle for true liberty, upon the minds of persons of all classes in Europe. Her letters of introduction from her friends, from Bishop Whittingham and others, brought her into frequent contact with people of cultivation and refinement who, like the masses, yet held the popular belief in regard to the oppression and abuse of the South by the North, a belief which Mrs. Tyler even at the risk of offending numerous Southern friends by her championship, was sure to combat. Like other intelligent loyal Americans she was thus the means of spreading right views, and accomplishing great good, even while in feeble health and far from her own country. For her services in this regard she might well have been named a Missionary of Truth and Liberty.